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Learning & Education

Give yourself 5 days to learn how to play a song on a guitar. You are allowed to take the full amount of time off work so you have as much time as possible to prepare. At the end of the fifth day you have to play the song in front of a crowd.

A big crowd.

There will no doubt be a lot of pressure on you to not only succeed in playing the song, but actually play it well enough for people to be impressed. How would you start? How would you plan out those 5 days? Who would you contact to help coach you to short-term success? Do you think you could do it?

This past weekend I was able to visit a magical place of wonderment and excitement: A Barnes & Noble. There is just something about a bookstore that gets me frollicking; moving down each aisle in awe at the sheer amount of knowledge available.

I strode past the science section, curious about the books on evolution. I jaunted by the philosophy section, stopping to admire the compilation of works on John Dewey. I floated by the photography section, where I can learn how to take better photos. I glided through the fiction section, calculating on how many Kurt Vonnegut books I could pick up on my way through.

Like a kid in a candy store, I wanted it all. I wanted to load up every book and take it home.

Think of the kind of person you were 10 years ago. 5 years ago. Even a short amount of time like this day last year. Odds are you were a different kind of person in some ways, being involved in different projects.

To take on the challenges we face each day we recreate ourselves through learning. We educate ourselves on what we need to in order to complete our work.

Thing is, as time moves forward, so do the problems we face. We run the risk of forgetting things that were once imperative. Things that may be useful to have knowledge of later.

Learning is a strange thing. So often its main use is to make us useful for our current situation, even if that means learning to forget other things that get in the way.